Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to proceed without the time being charged to either side.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if the Senator from Georgia would be good enough to yield on his time, I don't know of opposition. We haven't been notified of the opposition. I want to take a moment to share with our colleagues a bit of the background on this amendment. This has been something that the Senator from Georgia has been interested in and committed to for some period of time. During the past weeks and months, he has taken the time to speak to me on a number of different occasions. He has talked to the members of the Education Committee about this issue. I am familiar with the fact, going back over a period of time when the Senate considered the reauthorization of this legislation previously, over a year ago, that the Senator from Georgia was very much involved in the developing of the legislation. He has read closely, obviously, the Department of Justice and Education study, which came out in 1998. In that study, this was one of the very important recommendations that they had. But he has taken a broad recommendation and sharpened it a good deal. I know he has spent a good deal of time talking to those who had initially been involved in recommending the study and has prepared this in a way which I think is enormously important and can be incredibly helpful. As I was listening to the good Senator and thinking about the times he has talked to me about it, I hope we are going to have the sufficient resources to be able to deal with this issue. I am convinced that if we can get this started and get to do even part of the things that the good Senator from Georgia has hoped that it would achieve and accomplish, we can develop the kind of enhanced support for this program that is necessary. What the Senator is basically pointing out is the great challenges of so many of the young people who are in school, going to school, after school, in a school community, and the kind of violence that is affecting these young people. It is a form of intimidation, a form of bullying, and it obviously has very important adverse impact on the willingness of children to either go to school or their attitude toward school when violence takes place in the time period after school but in the proximity of the school. He has framed it in a broad way to challenge the center itself to draw on all of the community and community resources, which I think is obviously enormously useful. He is talking about the entire community, and he is talking about steps that can be taken in terms of prevention and intervention. He is talking to the various school personnel so they will have the training which too many of them don't have now to be able to anticipate these problems. He is talking about involvement of the students themselves and community members in these activities. I can think of a number of different schools in my own city of Boston where the students themselves have become very much involved in assuring safe passage, so to speak, for children to be able to go to the school, while they are at school, and after school. It is a very important success. This is one of those situations where some guidance, some training, some information in the community can have an enormous payoff. I think the result will be a safer climate and an atmosphere in which the children can learn. I think this is a very well thought through program. He has done a great deal of work in the fashioning and shaping of it. The security of the children in school we try to address to some extent in the safe and drug-free schools. I can see this as a complement to those efforts as well. I think as a result of this amendment the children in that community, as well as teachers and parents, and the whole climate and atmosphere around schools, which in too many instances, tragically, are threatened, would be made safer and more secure. I commend the Senator for his initiative and thank him for his work in this area, and I indicate that I hope, when the Senate does address this issue, we have very strong and overwhelming support. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may use. Is the time evenly divided?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, yesterday I cited chapter and verse how this Republican budget flunks the test of education reform. It puts tax cuts for the wealthy first, and the needs of America's children last. But that is not the only fundamental flaw in this budget. America's seniors, too, will be left out and left behind. Too many elderly Americans today must choose between food on the table and the medicine they need to stay healthy or to treat their illnesses. Too many senior citizens take half the pills their doctor prescribes, or don't even fill needed prescriptions--because they can't afford the high cost of prescription drugs. Too many seniors are paying twice as much as they should for the drugs they need, because they are forced to pay full price, while almost everyone with a private insurance policy benefits from negotiated discounts. Too many seniors are ending up hospitalized--at immense cost to Medicare--because they aren't receiving the drugs they need at all, or can't afford to take them correctly. Pharmaceutical products are increasingly the source of miracle cures for a host of dread diseases, but senior citizens are left out and left behind in this republican budget. The crisis senior citizens face today will only worsen if we refuse to act, because insurance coverage continues to go down, and drug costs continue to go up. Twelve million senior citizens--one third of the total--have no prescription drug coverage at all. Only half of all senior citizens have prescription drug coverage throughout the year. Coverage through employer retirement plans is plummeting. Medicare HMOs are drastically cutting back. Medigap plans are priced out of reach of most seniors. The sad fact is that the only senior citizens who have stable, reliable, affordable drug coverage today are the very poor on Medicaid. Prescription drug costs are out of control. Since 1996, costs have grown at double-digit rates every year. In the stunning report released earlier this week, cost increases continue to accelerate, with prescription drug costs growing an enormous 18.8 percent last year. No wonder access to affordable prescription drugs has become a crisis for so many elderly Americans. Every Member of Congress understands that this is a crisis--but this budget offers no solution. It refuses to give senior citizens the help they deserve. Yet it gives lavish tax breaks to millionaires. Compare the language in this budget for prescription drugs to language on tax cuts and you have a sense of the relative priorities in this budget. If the Republicans gave a real priority to coverage of prescription drugs under Medicare, there would be a reconciliation instruction--not a reserve fund. The budget resolution could require the Finance Committee to report a prescription drug bill and set a date certain for action, just as the GOP resolution does for tax cuts. If Republicans gave a real priority to this proposal, they would not condition life-saving prescription drugs for seniors on ``reforming'' Medicare. The supporters of the resolution are saying that prescription drugs for seniors will be held hostage to controversial reforms in other parts of Medicare. But the resolution contains no requirement that the tax code must be reformed before millionaires get their tax breaks. If the Republicans were serious about a prescription drug proposal, the resolution would specify that the reserve fund is for coverage of prescription drugs under Medicare. That is what senior citizens want and deserve. But this resolution doesn't require that. These funds are available for any program that ``improves access to prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries.'' That could be a welfare program. It could be an expansion of Medicaid. It could even be President Bush's proposed block grant that would reach only one-third of senior citizens. At bottom, the amount the resolution allocates for Medicare prescription drugs is grossly inadequate. The maximum it provides is $300 billion over ten years. But, according to the Congressional Budget Office, senior citizens will have to spend $1.1 trillion on prescription drugs over the next ten years. The maximum amount that can be provided under this budget resolution is only about a quarter of that amount. That is not the kind of help senior citizens need, and it is not what Congress should provide. To add insult to injury, the Republican budget resolution allows the Medicare drug benefit to be funded by taking money from the Medicare Hospital Insurance fund, which seniors have paid into over their working lives to protect them against the high cost of health care. There is a reason for the inadequate promises of this budget resolution. The budget does not contain enough funds to provide a real prescription drug benefit under Medicare, because it squanders too much of the budget surplus on new tax breaks for millionaires. Medicare is a solemn promise to senior citizens. It says, ``Work hard, pay into the trust fund during your working years, and you will have health security in your retirement years.'' But this promise is being broken every day, because Medicare does not cover prescription drugs, and this budget does not mend that broken promise. It has been said that the measure of a society is how it treats its young and its old. By this measure, the Republican budget is a sad commentary on our values. It shortchanges young and old alike. It is a budget that is anti-child, anti-education, and anti-senior citizen. Its priorities are not the priorities of the American people, and it should be rejected. This budget spends $1.6 trillion over the next ten years on tax cuts, but only $153 billion on Medicare prescription drugs. Almost half the tax cut goes to the richest one percent of Americans--people with incomes averaging more than a million dollars a year. The GOP budget gives this small number of wealthy families more than five times as much as it provides for essential prescription drugs for forty million elderly and disabled Americans. The President and the sponsors of this budget say that they want to provide prescription drug coverage for every elderly American under Medicare. But adoption of this budget will make this goal much more difficult to achieve. This budget squanders the surplus and saves only token amounts for Medicare prescription drugs. In fact the budget does not even fund the low income program fully. If the block grant program is adjusted for inflation, it will cost $210 billion over 10 years, not the $153 billion that this budget provides. Clearly, there is not enough money in this budget to fund a Medicare benefit for all senior citizens. The choice could not be clearer. Do we stand with America's senior citizens--or with the privileged few? Do we believe the budget surplus should be used to benefit all Americans--or just the wealthiest Americans? Do we believe it is more important for people who already have incomes of more than a million dollars a year to get an additional $50,000 a year, than it is for senior citizens scraping by on limited incomes to get the life-saving drugs their doctors prescribe? For all of these reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote against this anti-senior citizen budget.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if there is no further discussion of this particular amendment, we are prepared to accept it.

Mr. KENNEDY. Muzzie. So I was glad to hear that. I might just mention one of my great teachers was Arthur Holcombe, who wrote ``Our More Perfect Union,'' who was probably the leading teacher--and certainly was at Harvard--about the Constitutional Convention. When he taught, you had a feeling you were right at the Constitutional Convention. I was fortunate to have him the last year he taught at Harvard. He taught my father when he went to Harvard, and he taught my three brothers. He taught about the Constitutional Convention. So he had a pretty good grasp of the subject matter by that time. But it was also a course that made a profound impact and impression on me, and one I will never forget. I thank again the Senator for his good words and his good work today.

Mr. KENNEDY. And the history book was----

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, if I could say one final word, I particularly appreciate the reference the Senator from West Virginia made about his teachers and the names of his teachers. And Fryes, is that the geography book?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, some few days ago when we were on the floor of the Senate--I think it was at that time, or perhaps even a little later in the week as we find ourselves today--we listened to our good friend from West Virginia. At that time he quoted one of his famous poems that, as his poem today suggests, had a deep-seated meaning to it. I took the occasion to ask him prior to the time that we were going to end this debate and discussion if he might recall his early years as a student and share them with us once again on the floor of the Senate. I have had the good opportunity to listen to the good Senator speak on many, many different subject matters, and always with great enthusiasm, strength, and belief for the causes for which he speaks, so many of which I agree. I always find, having listened to him for many, many years, that the stories he talks about of his early years and the power of education is really a lesson that all of us should hear because it reminds all of us about what, in this case, this legislation is all about and what we are attempting to try to provide for the young people in this country. If we were ever possibly able to sort of capture that extraordinary magic that was evidenced in that small school, the primer schools and then after that, and somehow develop in that classroom the atmosphere which brought Bob Byrd to sense the great desire and thirst for knowledge and personal achievement, accomplishment, and desire to really respond to the teachers by demonstrating keen intellect and an awareness in the classroom, and to take those early lessons and use them as guideposts for the rest of his life resulting in this extraordinary career of public service for the people of West Virginia, and the people of this Nation, I think our problems really as a country and as a society would be immensely advanced. Whenever I listen to Senator Byrd, I think about what we were trying to do in terms of different paragraphs, different authorizations and approaches in what we were trying to do in different provisions of the legislation. It always makes us think about what we ought to be doing better to try to make the dream of education and the kind of opportunity this extraordinary Senator felt, which was so much a part of his pathway to his own life and such a source of strength to him, as well as his deep-seated faith--we would be very fortunate if we were ever able to sort of capture that in a legislative undertaking. We have not done so with this legislation, needless to say. But we are going to continue to try to create a climate and atmosphere in the schools so other Bob Byrds in West Virginia, Massachusetts, Vermont, and across this country might perhaps have a similar life's experience, and, as a result of that, we would have a better and a stronger nation. I thank the Senator for his amendment. I know very well the Senator's strong interest in history. I will just take a moment or two to remind the Senate that one of our great historians, David McCullough, will be releasing his wonderful book on Adams and Jefferson. The book is going to be published in about 2 weeks. They have already printed some 350,000 copies. I don't think they have underestimated both the success of the book or the thirst of Americans for knowledge about this country in its early years. I remember the occasion when I was at the Longfellow House in Cambridge, MA, a few years back. I was looking at some of the papers in the Longfellow House. The Longfellow House was designated by Mrs. Clinton under Saving America's Treasures as one of our two treasures. The Longfellow House in Cambridge and the Frelinghuysen Morris House in Lenox are other treasures. But this was a special treasure for a number of reasons. One of those related to David McCullough's book is the fact that this was the place where George Washington assumed command of the American forces in the American Revolution. As David McCullough reminds us, this was the first symbol of national unity of a southern general commanding northern troops. Others had signed up for the American Revolution for periods of time, but the Glovers, which was a small band of troops who had been organized by Colonel Glover, committed themselves for the duration of the war. They were subsequently enormously important because they were the ones who brought Washington from Brooklyn Heights over to New York when the British fleet came into New York Harbor at a very key time in 1776. And when the wind was blowing from the northeast, it kept the British troops out. The Glovers brought Washington back into the main of New York, which would be Manhattan now. And then he escaped out into southern New York State and eventually over to New Jersey. Then the Glovers were the ones who brought him across the river at Trenton. But Dave McCullough wrote to me about papers that were there that were not as well cataloged or kept and were in danger of deterioration. These were magnificent handwritten notes of John Adams and John Quincy Adams that were directly relevant to the early years of the founding of this country. Senator Byrd was good enough to review--find out for himself, actually, as one would expect--the substance of that material and made his own independent judgment about the importance of preserving those in terms of our national history. As a result of his efforts, some extraordinarily important early documents involving the founding of this country are now carefully preserved for future generations. So when Senator Byrd talks about his love of history, we all know it and have seen it, but I think many of us have also witnessed it in our relationships with Senator Byrd on different issues. I thank him for offering this amendment. Some years ago, I was on the Bicentennial of the American Constitution committee. I was on that committee that Chief Justice Berger chaired with a number of our colleagues, Senator Hatch, Senator Thurmond--a number of our colleagues. From that, which was the bicentennial of the Constitution, one enduring, continuing, and ongoing force from that period was the establishment of the Madison Fellows. And there are two schoolteachers from each State, each year, who are selected through a very rigorous selection process. They receive a stipend for a period of study and then basically commit to teach the Constitution for the rest of the time they are teaching. We have now two in each State of the Union. We found during that period of time there was so little understanding about the Constitution. We found the challenge that we had so many people who could not read the Constitution. One of the small efforts that came out of that was a literacy corps to try to help in terms of reading. We have seen a number of different efforts since that time. There are some important initiatives in this legislation to improve reading for the young people in this country. This was a serious deficiency. But I can just say, as we reviewed at that time the importance of developing knowledge about the Constitution, we saw, as well, the failure in too many of our schools of the understanding, the appreciation of being taught good history. The good Senator's amendment can help immeasurably in developing a better understanding and awareness in history for our students. I appreciate the way the amendment is structured as well because it gives some special effort to our neediest communities that perhaps do not have the range of different resources in terms of our history and gives them the recognition that they can participate in this program and be able to do so on a very even basis with any of the other communities in the country. So I think it is structured in a very compelling way as well. I thank the Senator for both his statement and, most of all, for his earlier comments. I know every Member in this body is extremely busy, but if Americans want to know the value of an education and what it means in terms of an individual, read Bob Byrd, West Virginia, Thursday. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. I commend the Senator. We have seen awakened in this country, particularly in recent times, a sense of voluntarism. I think voluntarism is alive and well in the United States. Many of us hope that our young people, whatever their disposition, will be more involved in the public policy aspects of our country. You can't get away from the fact of their involvement in terms of volunteerism. I have seen it in our high-tech area in my own State of Massachusetts with our ``netdays'' where Massachusetts was 48 out of 50 States in terms of Internet access. And basically, through asking the high-tech industry to tie up with local schools, we have moved now into No. 11. We have what we call ``netdays.'' The private sector in the high-tech area, the software industry, has been enormously responsive in adopting schools, and labor laid down 350 miles of cable in Boston voluntarily on Saturdays because their children were going to these schools. Schools have an enormous ring in terms of our value system. To challenge our society in ways which they haven't been challenged before, in terms of giving people an opportunity to be a part of an educational system, would get a very positive response. We shouldn't miss the opportunity to at least challenge professionals in that area. The good Senator's amendment will help enormously in being able to do it. I thank the Senator.

Mr. KENNEDY. I thank my friend and colleague from New York for offering this amendment. I would appreciate his opinion on this. I have seen, in a number of different situations, where there are many individuals in different professions who are skilled in math and science and other areas in the new economy. And there are individuals who are retiring. If they had some way, some pathway to go into teaching, we would find that there is a great deal of interest. What the Senator is attempting to do is create a pathway for individuals who may have gone into a career for a period of time and have been able to have achievement in terms of their professional careers but then, with this kind of an opportunity that is included in the Schumer amendment, they would be able to have a career change and, with the kind of training and what they would bring to teaching as achievement in a number of different potential areas, they would be able to be of a real advantage to these students. Many of us have seen, for example, the Troops to Teachers Program where we have had a number of members of the U.S. Navy, particularly in the areas of--well, the submarine fleet comes the closest in the State of Washington, I believe, where a number of the people who retired from the Navy stayed in the area. These are people with enormous kinds of understanding and a great deal of training in terms of math and in terms of science. When they were offered this opportunity to engage in the schools--it is also true in a number of districts in Florida and in other communities where there were significant numbers of retirees in the military--when they opened up the opportunity for these servicemen to go into teaching, they just went in droves. The positive impact it has had in the schools in the areas of math and science has been absolutely extraordinary. As I was listening to the Senator, it seems to me that this is sort of a particular situation, but there are going to be other professions as well where individuals, through the Senator's amendment, could get into the areas of teaching and have a rewarding and satisfying and inspiring career and also make a real difference in terms of children's appreciation for learning as well as enhancing their skills academically.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield to the Senator from Arkansas.

Mr. KENNEDY. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 451

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, both the Wellstone and Lincoln amendments are very important. One is to make sure we have quality testing that reflects an accurate evaluation of the progress children are making and where the needs are so teachers can work on them and so the children can excel. The other is to make sure the programs are made available to the children who need the kind of assistance that limited-English programs provide and that has been demonstrated to be effective. We are talking about the neediest children in the country. We are talking about the poorest of the poor, living in enormously trying circumstances, who are trying to understand and make academic progress. Let's make sure that all the support will be there for them. I believe the yeas and nays have been asked for, Mr. President.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, first I want to say I am very hopeful that the Senate will overwhelmingly support the amendment of the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone. He spoke very clearly and effectively about his presentation today. I made comments yesterday about the importance of developing a test which is going to be comprehensive and not just reflective of perhaps the simple rote answers to rote kinds of questions, but real examinations of the thinking process of children and where they need help and assistance. The purpose of this legislation is to provide valid and reliable tests along with meaningful reforms that enable children to move ahead academically. That is what we want to try to do with the whole range of tests. We have enough experience now of knowing which ones really can be used for instruments for learning as compared to those which are solely punitive. In too many instances, teachers teach to the test. In this way, we both fail the student, fail the test, fail the school, and fail the parents. Senator Wellstone's amendment is enormously important. As I tried to point out yesterday, I think the kind of thoughtful examination by those who have been in the field for years in terms of the evaluation, as well as testing, have come to the conclusion that the more comprehensive examination of children done in a timely way and with the supplementary services available can be a very powerful instrument in helping needy children move ahead academically. I am hopeful that will be accepted by the Senate. I want to say a strong word in support of Senator Lincoln's amendment in terms of the bilingual education. One of the themes of this legislation is to try to find out what the challenges are in our local communities but also what works in our local communities in terms of educational achievement and build on that; also, to take that experience, and make sure that the children who ought to be covered in title I will be covered. This amendment is a no-brainer. If we look at the legislation that we currently have without the acceptance of the Lincoln amendment, we will be denying millions of limited English proficient children the key element in terms of increasing their academic ability with high quality, effective programs in Title III. We are not prescriptive. We give the local communities the choices in terms of the bilingual and language instructional programs that will be available to the schools and to the local communities in terms of helping children who are limited English proficient. Local communities can make judgments and decisions as to which program is suitable for their particular community. There is a wide range of different evaluations of these programs to demonstrate the ones that have been the most successful. All of that will be available to the local community. What is important is that those services be available to those children. Without those services being available to those children, then we are basically failing those children. It is a very clear group of children that we are failing. The number of children who fall into the limited English proficiency has virtually doubled over the period of the last 10 years, and is increasing daily. These students are making up a growing number of district's total enrollment. In 9 states the limited English proficient population has grown by 25 percent or more since 1995. The amendment of the Senator from Arkansas recognizes this growth, and responds to it. It says: Look, we know what works for the local communities. We know that schools throughout the nation have been struggling to serve this population. For a certain period of time, we thought the only language was going to be Spanish, and that it was just going to be in Florida, Texas, and California. But we know of the expansion of and the need for these programs in many other areas of our country, including Arkansas, as the Senator has pointed out. On this chart, the red line shows that the limited-English- proficiency enrollment has increased by 100 percent in the last 10 years, while total enrollment has basically been rather flat over that period of time. What we also know is, if we do not provide these programs, effectively, these children, almost out of definition, are going to fail in terms of new accountability and testing standards. That, we know. That is a given. The question is--here, this afternoon, in a few minutes--whether we are going to go on record and say, look, this is a particular group of children who are part of our public school systems--as a result of a variety of factors; the changes in immigration patterns, the changes in our immigration laws--who need assistance. There are many children who are falling into this category. We know, as sure as we are standing in this Chamber today, that if we do not adopt the Lincoln amendment, we are denying millions of children the kinds of benefits that we know are successful because they have demonstrated success. I have a number of examples where we have seen local communities that were able to participate in programs, such as what would be included in the amendment of the Senator from Arkansas. They have seen dramatic changes in their whole academic attitude. The result is that these children have really blossomed with those kinds of programs. Without them, we are going to be reaching only a very small number of these children who would otherwise be eligible--only 17 percent under the Bush budget. Over the 4 million limited English proficient students nationwide, we are only serving 900,000 at the present time. We aim to serve more. But we need the resources. We are hopeful, with this legislation, to try to build on tried and tested efforts that have been initiated in different parts of the country and that have been demonstrated to be constructive and productive in enhancing academic achievement--to offer these out to local communities, to let local communities make these decisions. We have given them additional kinds of flexibility. Then we would have accountability in terms of the teachers, in terms of the schools, in terms of the parents, and also new accountability for disadvantaged children who are facing enormous kinds of challenges every single day. Many students struggle with learning English, and meeting challenging academic standards. If we are really interested in getting a fair start for these children, if we are really interested in no children being left behind, we have, we believe, a program that can do that. But if we do not provide the kinds of targeting assistance with these programs for children who have the limited English proficiency, then effectively we are writing them off, make no mistake about it. That is what is at stake. That is what is so important. If we are really interested, we ought to recognize that this is a defined group of children who we have in our schools, and we ought to make sure the children are going to benefit from these programs. The red line on the chart--which brings us up to the year 2000--shows that the limited English proficient population now numbers more than 4 million students. That number is going to continued to grow. So the question is, Are we going to recognize what is happening in our schools today--what has happened over the last 10 years and what is going to happen in the next 5 years? If we are really interested in trying to make sure these children are not going to be left behind, this is the amendment that can make a major difference. I congratulate the Senator from Arkansas. I think this is one of the most important amendments we will consider. It is a lifeline in many respects. It is the crutch upon which the other provisions in Title III of this legislation really depend. If we do not provide resources for this program, then the other aspects of this legislation are going to, fail millions of children. That is wrong. We ought to take what we know. The good Senator from Arkansas has done that and has offered us an opportunity to make this legislation even stronger. We saw a modest increase in our authorization coming out of the committee. But that increase is clearly not enough to do the job. The Lincoln amendment will do the job. I am very hopeful that it will be accepted in the Senate. Mr. President, whatever time I have remaining, I am glad to yield to the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator be willing to enter into a reasonable time period? It is the noon hour now, just for notice to our Members. We had a good debate on this amendment. It is a very important one. I want to do whatever permits the Senator to make his case again.

Mr. KENNEDY. I am wondering if the Senator would like to have a rollcall vote.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator, who has spoken so eloquently, knows we are voting on the budget conference report.

Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is absolutely correct and reminds us about the importance of being accurate in the representation of what is in this budget. I hope that those on the other side will take the time to come out here, because we are challenging them on this point on education. Come out here and refute us. Show us where we are wrong. I would welcome that opportunity to hear how we are wrong. As the Senator from North Dakota has pointed out, the language is what is guiding. It isn't what we think might be in here. It isn't what might be in here at some time. It is what is in here. It is what is written down for all to see. The Senator has pointed out the controlling language which shows that there is no increase in education. Education is funded at current services, adjusted for inflation. That is against a background of an administration that has said: ``Education is the No. 1 priority. We are not going to leave a child behind.'' Well, we know that two-thirds of the children are being left behind with the current expenditures in title I--two-thirds of them. And 50 percent of the children are being left behind in the Head Start Program. And 95 percent of the children are being left behind in Early Head Start. And we know we are only funding about 15 percent of the eligible children in terms of the childcare for working mothers. We are leaving no child behind? We are leaving them all behind, a whole generation behind. That is what this budget does.